Electronic documents commonly used in the corporate and government environments are generated being word processing applications, spreadsheets, slide presentations, the most common being MICROSOFT OFFICE™ application suite. With today's pervasive networking systems such as local area networks (LANs), wide area networks (WANs) and the Internet, and software tools such as e-mail, it is very easy for individuals to move these documents around to different computers, computer systems and other individuals without little or no thought as to the sensitivity of the content contained therein. As a matter of security in the electronic workplace there is therefore a need to classify, manage and control the creation and flow of documents, e-mail correspondence and the like.
Some document management solutions allow the user to associate classifications to a document when a document is added to a document management repository governed by document management systems. These classification properties are stored in the document library database and are not actually attached to the document itself and are dependent on the document management system for identification and enforcement.
When a document is removed from the document management repository and sent to or shared with someone, it loses the associated properties because the properties are not part of the document. The classification may not also be visible on any printed copies of the document itself. As a result, the person receiving the document has no easy way to identify the classification of the document, and they therefore do not know what limitations should be placed on the handling and distribution of the document. In addition, compliance systems verifying the handling or distribution of the document have no way to decide what to do with the document as there are no properties attached to the document and potential contained in the document itself.
There is therefore a need for an improved classification and management system for electronic documents.